An Open Letter to the Knight Arts Challenge

This is a letter I recently sent to the folks at the Knight Foundation regarding the Knight Arts Challenge. If you agree with anything I’ve written here, or have thoughts of your own on how to improve the Knight Arts Challenge, please share a comment here, and let them know too!

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An Open Letter to the Knight Arts Challenge
Why I Didn’t Apply This Year

March 31, 2011

Dear Folks at the Knight Arts Challenge,

First, thanks for all you have done for our community, both through the Knight Arts Challenge, as well as your other generous funding. I have personally benefited from this funding as an employee of the Broward County Libraries, teaching computer classes on a grant from the Knight Foundation throughout much of 2010. I know our students greatly benefited from these classes as well – they really made a difference to a lot of formerly computer-illiterate people! I also appreciate the funding the Knight Foundation provides in a multitude of communities throughout the US.

I was thrilled and interested when I first heard about the Knight Arts Challenge, attended several information sessions, and eagerly prepared and submitted my ideas for multiple arts projects. And I have submitted multiple ideas every round of funding, until the most recent round.

What happened? I got discouraged. Not one of my ideas ever even made it past the first round. This has been disappointing, but that’s not what really discouraged me. What discouraged me the most was observing that very few individual artists have received any funding whatsoever in the Knight Arts Challenge. I am not the only person who has noticed this imbalance, it’s something a number of applicants have brought up in conversation over the past several years.

I’ve thought about this a lot, and concluded that this imbalance could be a result of one or more of these factors:

1. A majority of applications are submitted by non-profits and few by artists (though I doubt this is the case).
2. Non-profits submit more polished applications, due to having paid staff and grant writers available to prepare applications.
3. An institutional bias may exist at Knight Arts Challenge favoring non-profits, based on a belief, conscious or sub-conscious, that non-profits are more credible.
4. Individual artists are not submitting good, credible ideas and applications (though I doubt this is the case).
5. An institutional bias may exist at Knight Arts Challenge favoring non-profits, based on Knight staff being more familiar with and having long-term working relationships with non-profits and their staff.
6. Other factors which I have not thought of yet.

I don’t know what the real reason is that you’re funding very few individual artists in the Knight Arts Challenge. You have gone out of your way to solicit applications from artists and encourage artists to apply. And I know many, many artists who have applied, with great enthusiasm. Whatever the reason, I appreciate the fact that you allow individual artists to apply – many grantors don’t – and I would like to see a more level playing field here, one that results in more grants to individual artists.

While you are clearly devoting a great deal of funding to the arts, it seems to me this funding tends to benefit arts audiences and organizations more than artists. While these things are not entirely separate, and developing greater appreciation for the arts among audiences, and building audiences for the arts does benefit artists, I encourage you to find ways to directly support and fund artists. Because without working artists, there will ultimately be no arts for audiences to appreciate.

To quote your application: “We are seeking projects that strive to create good, high quality art in our community.” Other priorities for your funding include arts that bring the community together and create a sense of community. Perhaps your focus on community has obscured the fact that artists, those who actually create the art that audiences and organizations are consuming and promoting, are one of the most important parts of that equation.

I’ve seen similar situations with a lot of arts funders, who often fund non-profit organizations but not individual artists. This creates an environment where artists are either pressured to turn themselves into non-profit organizations, even when this may not be the most appropriate business model for their work, or towards compromising their artistic integrity and vision for the sake of commercial viability. While some artists do find ways to achieve commercial success without that kind of compromise, more direct non-commercial funding for artists would make a difference in artists’ working environment, and allow more artists the time and resources to create great work.

So I would encourage you to ask yourselves why it is that so few individual artists are receiving funding from the Knight Arts Challenge? I suggest that you consider designating a certain amount of funding for organizations, and a certain amount for individual artists. Perhaps this has already occurred to you, as you do ask applicants to indicate whether we are applying as an individual or an organization.

Or if you discover any factors affecting grant decisions such as the ones suggested above, I strongly encourage you to work to remedy them, so that more individual artists can receive funding for their excellent projects.

I would be happy to discuss this issue with you, and to engage with you in a revision of Knight Arts Challenge procedures, in order to create a more level playing field for individual artists. I would also be happy to recommend other outstanding artists in our community who may be interested in assisting with this revision.

Again, thanks for all you do, and I hope this feedback will be meaningful and helpful to you in your work to enhance the arts in South Florida and other communities!

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Great Words from Great Wordsmiths

“I am the strings, and the Supreme is the musician.” - Carlos Santana
“What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner.” - Collette
“I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument, while the song I came to sing remains unsung.” - Rabindranath Tagore
“A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.” - Maya Angelou

Meta Morphosis

3 comments

She’s right of course. The music business, and the Arts in general have become very commercialized, homogenized, monetized and corporatized. The result has been a fall down the slippery slope for artists who seek respect and a fair trade value for their works. Corporate control of the Arts is not a winning practice for artists and/or their audiences, as it puts a third party with very specific special and commercial interests in charge of what will pass the gates of taste, respectability and monetary acknowledgement. To go deeper into the subject, this corporate devaluation of the Arts, and its skewed view of these corporate controllers as more important ( and much better paid) than the actual creators, demoralizes the artists as well as their intended audience. A demoralized audience begins to see artists and their art as less and less valuable, and so becomes willing to steal art, and render it absolutely valueless. From this the situation deteriorates further to the point where people don’t want to listen to music (as programmed) or experience art. The Arts needs Fair Trade practices. It needs unbiased, curious, open hearted and visionary promoters (notice I didn’t say critics, we have enough of them, thanks). The Arts needs Love, and a lot of it, and it needs it right now. If you love the Arts, then I encourage you to find some form of art, some example you feel is especially worthy, and buy it. But don’t stop there, email, write or call the artist and tell them how it makes you feel, how it opened your heart, how it helped you in some way, maybe how it helped you understand yourself better in some way. Go see a live performance of something you find interesting; a play, a band, a poetry reading. If you can’t find a proper venue that feels safe and free of distractions, then speak about the need for a better venue, or better yet, create one! Let’s pump some badly needed inspiration into the Arts. As all is oneness, what will come back to you is an unbelievably inspired,vital and important local (and worldwide) Art scene. Let’s not go numb here. Turn off those TV’s and let’s get out of the virtual world and recreate a real world we can live in and LOVE! Remember, you have the power until you give it away.
Alex Kashhttp://www.alexkash.com

Laura Sue, I absolutely agree with you in your perception about the Knights Arts Challenge grant winners–orgniazations and organized groups are getting the grants rather than individuals. BUT when I’ve looked at the winners, I often see similar ideas to what I and others have submitted, with no recognition at all. I also see winners pretty much repeating ideas from previous years’ winners, and still winning, without much originality, go figure. Maybe people feel that they need to play it safe and go by what has won before in order to win, and guess what, they do! I’ve seen very general mundane ideas win rather than projects that were well thought out or really stretching creatively, too.

I’ve heard comments from others in the arts community that in order to win a KAC grant, you had to know someone on the panel because it’s all about connections. Whatever it is, I don’t know, but something has not felt right since I first read the list of winners from year to year, comparing them. I can’t really put my finger on it, but your ideas and mine make sense. And I applaud you for going out on a limb to address this. I think many artists in the south Florida arts community are frustrated with this particular granting organization. I hope you can shift their perception or at least raise their awareness by doing this. Thanks.

Thanks Laura Sue,
Your comments are well thought out and expressed. Like you, I am most grateful for all the Knights Foundation has done. I especially like your point when you say, “Because without working artists, there will ultimately be no arts for audiences to appreciate”